Everything that had its beginning before resurrection must be wiped out. Resurrection is God’s new starting-point.

(Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, p. 89)

The process of losing control always involves a kind of death and resurrection. The theme of dying and rising to new life runs throughout the New Testament. For instance, when Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born again (John 3:3), Jesus means Nicodemus must put an end to the way he’s always lived his life and allow the Holy Spirit to raise up in him a new kind of life. When a person is “born again” it is the resurrected life of Jesus that takes up residence within him or her. They begin to live in and through Jesus. The apostle Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Galatians: …It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me… (2:20, RSV).

In the early centuries of the Christian church, baptism brought home this sense that in turning in faith to Jesus one was, in effect, dying and being raised up into a new life. In preparation for their baptism new converts to Christianity would spend up to two years in study and prayer before officially leaving behind their old way of life and being reborn into the resurrected life of Jesus. This may seem like an inordinate amount of time to those of us living in the twenty-first century, but back then people understood that conversion to Christianity from paganism meant making a total break with life lived the way they’ve always lived it. Unlearning the habits and attitudes that characterized the life they were about to leave behind and learning appropriate ones for their new life in Christ was not something that could be rushed or entered into lightly.

Paul writes about this learning process in his letter to the Ephesians: That… is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. Youwere taught, with your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness…(4:20-24).

6th century Christian baptismal pool; Church of Holy Wisdom, Constantinople

Back then, when a person was finally ready to be baptized he or she would first remove their garments as a way of metaphorically “putting off their old self.” They would then step down into a pool where a presbyter (minister) would gently lean them back until they were completely submerged under the water and then raise them up out of the water. This submerging and raising action was done a total of three times: first, in the name of the Father; second, in the name of the Son; and third, in the name of the Holy Spirit. Afterwards, they would step out of the pool and demonstrate how through baptism they’ve “put on the new self” by clothing themselves in fresh white robes. This baptismal liturgy reminded them that they had made a break with their old life. They felt like they had died and risen again, with Christ.

Today, however, many Christians no longer associate “death and resurrection” with being born again. Becoming a Christian is often viewed now as incorporating Christian beliefs and values into a continuing way of life instead of a radical break with one’s past. Although most of us wouldn’t mind new clothes, we’d most likely prefer to hold on to a number of things from our old life, including a few of our vices – especially the ones our friends find charming and our colleagues admire. After all, nobody wants to be born again…and end up as a bore.

However, if we take Paul as an example of someone who made a total break with his former way of life, it’s important to note that he didn’t suddenly become boring or turn into a drone. He was still the brilliant and argumentative person he was before he “died.”

Statue of St. Paul by Adamo Tadolini, 1838

But, in being raised to new life, Paul began to live increasingly free of pride and self-interest. He could more easily abandon himself to God and not worry about what people thought of him or his actions or whether he was following all the rules. He lived a grace-infused life, with peace and joy abounding. In dying to his pride-riddled self, he began to live life selflessly and abundantly through Jesus. Jesus’ resurrected life was present in him – and he had never been more alive or authentically “himself.”

I think what we all fear in this notion of making a break with our former way of life is giving up our autonomy. We fear the loss of power. But the truth is we don’t really have any power until we are reborn in Christ. Unless that happens we remain under the power of sin. Being held captive by sin means we are not free to be truly ourselves. We have only the illusion of being “free,” of being in control. Actually, we are trapped in patterns of self-interest, self-indulgence and self-serving behavior. Only through the figurative death and resurrection of turning to Jesus and surrendering our lives to his Lordship do we begin to truly live and become “ourselves” – the people God created us to be; the people we are powerless to be unless we are born again.

5 Responses to Losing Control (eighth in a series)

WOW! Many, many thanks for this installment of this series, Claudia! None of this is really new information, but they way you have laid it out for us here makes it seem that way. It brings a freshness to the “old information”, and I really do appreciate that.

In thinking back about how I came to the Lord, it was a fairly straightforward, simple process of interaction with God one-on-one. He spoke to me in my spirit, and I said I’d trust Him. This was after some preparation for this of reading the New Testament. I had had no question that God existed for many years, but I told God I wanted to know more about this Jesus who could do the things the NT said He did. Not much later, one very early morning watching the sunrise, He spoke to me and I trusted Him. A few months later I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. And it was some time after that, after being taught God’s ways by a number of teachers that the opportunity came to be baptized in water.

I had been in a denominational church some years before, but saw it only as a symbol. This time, however, I believed it was just as you have said, the working of death and resurrection in me spiritually. I was dunked in a swimming pool. The next morning when I awoke from sleep, I noticed that all the internal “noise” was gone! I noticed a real difference in myself internally, emotionally, spiritually. I knew, then, that this time had “taken”.

So many people think that these sacraments (baptism, Eucharist, etc.) are just symbols, but I have believed, and do believe, there is something very real that occurs spiritually in us when we are baptized and when we take the Eucharist, and I sense that something real happening in myself.

Concerning the old way of life given up, this may not be what we expect. It is a spiritual thing, and doesn’t mean we do different things, but more likely that we do things differently because we are different in character.

I will re-read this more later today and this week to let all you’ve said sink in more.

Cynthia, thank you so much for taking the time to comment. Another aspect of the baptismal preparation was that people were routinely prayed over and anointed (what we would now call a ministry of “inner healing”) so that they began their “born again” life set free of the emotional burdens (and their physical counterparts) that many Christians today enter their “born again” life still burdened with. How different life would be in modern congregations if we did this today. Claudia

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Quotable Corner

"Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees every thing in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is, after all, an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul." Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 263

"After a man is saved, God will continue His training efforts. 'Putting on Christ' and Christ 'being formed in us' and having 'the mind of Christ' certainly do not mean simply reading what Christ said and attempting to put it into practice. Rather they mean that a real Person, not something remote and abstruse, comes to you day after day and 'interfering with you very self' shapes you into a being with a life similar to God's own. The command to the Christian to be perfect is no hyperbole but precisely what Christ meant. He begins on earth a process that will be consummated in heaven, but it is a process and will not allow you successfully to play the hypocrite with your naked self. God will not allow you to take the attitude, 'I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary Chap.' His plan is indeed to make you into a heavenly being. This may account for the rough time Christians go through, for He is turning every one of his children into 'a little Christ.' He is not like a trainer who teaches a horse to jump better; He is in the business of turning horses into winged creatures." Clyde Kilby, The Christian Word of C. S. Lewis, pp. 181-182.

"Wounded healers must forsake the prideful tendency to be defined only in terms of strengths and wholeness. They must will authenticity, especially where they're still weak and tempted. That liberates the witness of God's incredible sufficiency and makes real that sufficiency through others who mediate Christ's grace and truth." Andrew Comiskey, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness, p, 191

"The historical roots of the theory of evolution are quite complex. But apart from a newly awakened fascination with the "laws of history" (Herder, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche) there was, no doubt, another ingredient: the Industrial Revolution with its concept of advance by improved workability. The idea that in the vast factory of nature things which do not work well are discarded for things which work better arises out of the mood of the nineteenth century. The entire universe was made to fit the drab climate of Manchester. While the pic of Genesis, with its powerful poetic form, was rejected as "anthropomorphic," an evolutionist concept of how things came about is tinged with the ephemeral of the laboratory and the market place." Karl Stern, The Flight from Woman. p. 291

"When people are so self-convinced that the world needs their accomplishments more than their sanctity and prayer-depth, they never do face squarely the overwhelming figure of Christ and his message in life and word." Thomas Dubay, S. M., The Evidential Power of Beauty, p. 301

"Ministries which attack only the surface of sin and fail to ground spiritual growth in the believer's union with Christ produce either self-righteousness or despair, and both of these conditions are inimical to spiritual life." Richard F. Lovelace in "Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal"

"Every Christian experience is an experience of faith; that is, it is an experience of what we have not...We are not saved by the love we exercise, but by the love we trust." P. T. Forsyth in "Christian Perfection"

"The heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of." Blaise Pascal

"To believe in [Jesus Christ] and not to believe in what He believed, not to love what He loved and not to desire what He desired, is not to believe in Him." Alexander Schmemann in "Of Water & the Spirit"

"Because victory is his, therefore it is ours. If only we will not try to gain the victory but simply to maintain it, then we shall see the enemy utterly routed. We must not ask the Lord to enable US to overcome the enemy, nor even look to HIM to overcome, but praise him because he has already done so; he IS victor. It is all a matter of faith in him. If we believe the Lord, we shall not pray so much but rather we shall praise him more. The simpler and clearer our faith in him, the less we shall pray in such situations and the more we shall praise." Watchman Nee in "Sit, Walk, Stand."